This photo turned up in my social media today. I’d like to say that it was mine, but it’s not. It does have a distinct Rob Lewis look to it and he was well known in the day for his crisp B&W shots so it could be.
I believe the shot is from the last round of the Swann Series at Melbourne’s Sandown Park and the bike is, of course, the Honda Britain F1 bike which Ron had ridden with great success in Britain that season.
Sadly, the bike was a bit tired by the time it came to Australia and wasn’t a “works” effort, Ron and his crew doing all the fettling. The RCB was also known to be a fast but fragile motor and it showed its fragility throughout the series only really coming good in the Swann race itself where Ron brought the bike home in 2nd behind Ron Boulden’s TZ750 Yamaha. That was after the engine in the Honda had detonated spectacularly in practice, coating the track with oil and bringing down a large number of riders who happened to be on the track at the time. Rebuilds overnight saw most competitors out for the final on the Sunday and they all looked like being seen off by Kiwi, Graeme Crosby on his F1 Suzuki. Sadly for Graeme, he missed a gear during the race while in the lead, bent a valve in the engine and lost power and the lead.
Ron is a lovely bloke. In other places in the blog I have detailed the several interviews that I have done with him at a couple of WSBK meetings at PI over the years. As I have noted before, they say that you shouldn’t meet your heroes because you’ll usually be disappointed. This certainly isn’t the case with Ron, our meetings only increased my admiration for him. Ron turns 75 today and is still actively involved in the sport. I am certainly privileged to have made his acquaintance.
On the local front, the rain has begun to ease, the many roads locally that have been closed have now re-opened and access to town is now possible. The highest rainfall for July previously has been 192mm in July 2020, a notably wet period. So far in the first 4 days of July, we have received 370mm of rain, nearly twice the previous MONTHLY record. And, we are well off compared to many localities around NSW where they have been flooded out for the THIRD time this year so far.
The Putty Road is closed after a huge tree brought down a landslide near Howes Valley (not that I’d be going there anyway, but..)
and the driveway and access road to the Grey Gum Café is also destroyed again, not long after it was fixed last time.
Many of my friends live on the far North Coast of NSW, another area that has been devastated by floods over recent months. This is a photo taken by one of them of a road outside of Tweed Heads that was damaged in February and still has not been repaired, the local council saying that work SHOULD begin in March 2023.
As the poet said..”of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.”
We’re safe and dry here, hopefully we can stay that way. No more MotoGP rumours (it’s the Summer break”) but the Quatararo controversy rumbles on, with the “should he or shouldn’t he?” debate still raging.
I’ve received an email from MotoPod (haven’t heard from them for ages) asking me to contribute to their upcoming 700th episode. Happy to do that, I’ll let you know when it gets published.
And this afternoon I hope to conclude an interview with a very well-known road racing identity, looking forward to that.
Next time.
